It has been a long day for a young student. After a long day at school, he gets home, throws his backpack beside the door, walks into his living room and falls into the couch, after which his mind starts to drift. He imagines himself in a world of monsters and heroes. He imagines himself in a forest lying beneath a tree. Then the ground starts to shake he sees a big bear like creature with bone like armor and glowing red eyes. He jumps up towards the bear and he is thrown behind the creature. He struggles to his feet as the creature runs towards him. He runs towards it as well sword drawn. As the creature gets closer and closer, he slides beneath its huge mouth at the last minute and continues under the creature. He plunges his sword into the monster as he slides out behind the creature again, and he turns around preparing for another attack. However, the monster stumbles and falls over dead. At this moment, his friend snaps him out of his daydream and asks him if he wants to play a video game. He obliges and gets on his way.
If you were to guess the age of the boy with such a wild imagination what would it be? Most likely seven, eight, maybe nine years old. Well, believe it or not, that boy was me, and the events described as well as the daydream occurred less than four months ago. It is this assumption that you have to be a "child" in order to daydream or have a wild imagination that is stifling our students, children and ourselves. But don't mistake this for me saying I am the best because of X, Y and Z. Take it as a stepping stone into a conversation about what we value in kids and adults.
If you google 'when does a child start asking why?' you see numerous sites and articles about how asking why is a developmental milestone. This is true, and I am not here to argue with psychologists. However, as time continues we tend to value imagination and fantasy less, and logic and reasoning more. However, we fail to see the inherent value in continuing to help them develop their imaginations. Merriam-Webster defines imagination as, "something that only exists or happens in your mind" and the Oxford Dictionary defines it as "the faculty or action of forming new ideas, or images or concepts of external objects not present to the senses." With these two definitions it starts to beg the question: can fantasy and logic not only co-exist but help each other?
In my experience they can. I will give you an example. I was on a long drive home and I had to keep myself busy. So, I started daydreaming. In this world, I was the main communications person and a part of a military convoy transporting a recently tested rocket propulsion system that was to be used on a the first manned mission to space in this fantasy world. We were going along without incident when all of a sudden we saw a group of fantasy creatures called Fanus (cat people) blocking the road protesting. However, as we slowed down to go around they pulled out weapons and started attacking the convoy, so I gave the order to run through them because all of them seemed to be attacking us. It was in this moment that a thought crept into my head. After I finished the daydream I went back to that thought. Violent, extremist and irrational people and groups are not always the problem more rather a symptom of the problem.
This thought carries back into reality well, especially when considering supporters Donald Trump. People so often dismiss them as a problem for America and Americans. However, having friends who are Trump supporters, I believe that Trump supporters are not the problem rather a symptom of the problem: a corrupt government system.
This thought and this discussion all came from some daydream some imaginary world I made up. This daydream allowed me to look at something in the "real world" and see something logically from a different perspective. We praise books for allowing us into different worlds and presenting new ideas and challenges. So, why can only "children" do this? The answer is that the don't as shown by me. So I challenge everyone to daydream and venture off to those places where you can make your own story every day and see new things all while being "actually productive."
